Derek and Kendra
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: Derek and Kendra date, and bond over the shared fact of being adopted.


"Hi," I said to the girl sitting behind me in English class. I knew her name, which was Kendra, and she was really beautiful. Her hair was shoulder length and straight, and jet black. Her eyes were such a dark brown that they looked black, too, and slanted up over high cheek bones. I felt my awkwardness and ugliness when I talked to her. Light brown curly hair, pale skin, big nose, bug eyes. Nothing to write home about. This girl was pretty enough to be a model.

"Hi, Derek," she said, and smiled and shyly ducked her head. Hey, who knew? Maybe looks didn't matter. Did I dare go for it before Kwan started the class with her iron fist? I took a deep breath and realized I did dare. My ugliness had made me daring.

"Want to go to the Dot after school?" I said, and she nodded, and in the first wave of my elation I realized I'd invited her to the place where her brother worked. Great, Derek, I thought at myself. Just great.

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The date Gods must have been smiling at me that day because Spinner had the day off, so we had the Dot, and all its comforts, to ourselves. We ordered fries and milkshakes and settled into our table, and I stared at her when she wasn't looking. Her lips were this gorgeous natural red, and her eyes gave the illusion of wisdom. All westerners know that true wisdom resides in the East, and the T.V. shows and movies that are in this train of thought reflect life, not the other way around. But I knew that she was only a 15 year old girl, and that she was as lost as the rest of us.

And I knew something else, everyone knew. She was adopted. Of course it was obvious, Spinner and the rest of his family were as European Canadian as you could get, and Kendra was born in China. But I was adopted, too, and with me it wasn't obvious because I was born here and shared the same general European characteristics as the rest of my family. But I knew Kendra and me had a bond in this, that it didn't matter if you were from across the world or across the same city, the differences and the feeling of being different ran deep. So I thought, even though she was so pretty and I was a bit of an ugly duckling, a real relationship between us was possible.

We stuck to small talk that first day, sipping our shakes and nibbling fries, and I watched the delicate way she dipped her's into the ketchup. I was brave again and asked her if she wanted to go to the movies with me that weekend, and she ducked her head in her shy way and said yes.

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Home. I wondered what my parents thought of me. I mean, I knew they wanted a baby, couldn't have one, adopted one. But I wondered what they thought about the baby they got. Did they think about how I wasn't really related to them, the way I thought that about them? Did they wonder how a natural child of theirs would act? How this would differ from me? Did they regret things about me, wish I was different? Did they know about the time I poured into thinking about my biological parents and wondering how and why they gave me away? Even the way I phrased it had taken some development. I said, to myself and to others, "my biological parents," This was very scientific. Biologically, at the genetic level, these other people were my parents. I used to call them my real parents, meaning only that they had physically produced me. Then I started to feel bad, thinking of my adoptive parents who had been there for me when I cried, when I skinned knees, when I was scared. They had loved me and raised me and were there, day after day. By calling the others "real" was I implying that they weren't real? That they were fake? I knew the things they had done for me, the home and love they provided, was real. I knew in what sense they were my "real" parents. So I had changed the words I used to not cause harm.

This was a big deal with me. Maybe I felt pressure to be good, to be someone my parents wouldn't mind having, wouldn't mind having adopted. Because, well, they chose me, but they didn't know what they were getting. I was a baby, interchangeable with any other old baby. But maybe that wasn't true. I'd researched it a bit. They say even infants can sense the devastation of being abandoned by their mother, and that this event is made the more traumatic because it occurs before there are words to describe it. My biological mother was the one who I lived in for nine months, it was her heart beat and voice and rhythms I was becoming accustomed to, and it was all those things that were ripped away from me. So maybe I was this damaged little creature, and my parents took me in, and it's all very fairy tale-ish and tragic, and maybe I feel like if I'm not good enough that they'll abandon me, too. Hey, it happened once. It could happen again.


End file.
